United STATs: Eddie Vedder’s 2011 U.S. Tour By The #s

by
Jessica Letkemann
on July 24, 2011

Some people go to the beach when it’s scorching hot. Some chill out at the movies. Me? I figure there’s no better time for hiding out in the air-conditioning and crunching all the numbers from Eddie Vedder’s just-finished June/July 2011 solo tour across the United States.

Inspired by John’s excellent breakdown of the stats for EV’s spring 2011 Australian tour (which you can re-read here), I sat down with the setlists and notes, my favorite graphing program, and Photoshop.

The Basics

The tour consisted of: 20 Shows at 16 different venues in 12 different states. It ran a total of 31 days (June 15 – July 16, 2011). For the purpose of these stats, Ed’s June 20 appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman” has not been counted.

29.6: Average Number of Songs per Show34: Most songs in one show (July 1, July 16)24: Least songs in one show (June 15)

If you listened to the tour end-to-end, your playlist would be 691 tracks long. Eddie played 81 different songs, of which 29 were non-album covers.

Game, SET, Match

As with any tour involving Eddie — Pearl Jam or solo — each night’s setlist varied significantly. After graphing it out, it’s clear there were a bunch of songs he made sure to play every night, or almost every night; and a bunch of songs he played only once. But a lot of the tour’s variety came in the form of the many, many songs he only played a few times each.

SONGS PLAYED ONCE: All the Way, Around The Bend, Driftin, once In A While, Satellite, Yellow Ledbetter, Blackbird, Brain Damage, Drive All Night, Girl from North Country, Golden State, Havana Moon, Hurt, I Got you, I Used To Work In Chicago, So You Wanna Be A Rock and Roll Star, Redemption Song, Waiting On A Friend

SONGS PLAYED AT EVERY SHOW: Can’t Keep, Guaranteed, Hard Sun, Just Breathe, Sleeping By Myself, Unthought Known, Without You

Cover Me

With 20 years of Pearl Jam material, two solo albums of his own, and a hundred years of recorded music to choose from, the tour’s sets not only varied by how often songs were played, Eddie was also sure to mix and match between tunes he’d written and the gems of others. On any given night, you could expect that nearly 40% of the show would be Pearl Jam songs, just shy of a quarter each would be from “Into the Wild” and “Ukulele Songs,” and close to 15% would be covers not on either of his albums. If you got really lucky — 1% of shows lucky — you might encounter an original Vedder tune that’s never been on album, like the pump organ and mandolin jams whipped out later in the tour. And I’m counting “Santa Cruz,” which was on the 2008 Pearl Jam fan club single, as one of these 1%-ers because it’s been played so rarely.

Over the course of the 691 songs played, Eddie played covers 161 times. Over half of those 161 times were tunes — like classics from Dylan, Neil Young, The Beatles, Lennon, Springsteen — that aren’t on either of Eddie’s solo albums.

Be My Guest

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram were flooded with theater marquees from across the land that read: Eddie Vedder. Tonight. Sold-Out. But Ed was far from alone on those stages. Opening act Glen Hansard played at least one song with Eddie at every single show. And Hansard wasn’t the only musician who lent a hand. Over the course of the 20 shows, Eddie had a total of 12 guests (including Hansard; not including the various local string quartets), all of them quite unexpected. A fan who attended one show had a 40% chance of seeing someone in addition to Glen Hansard jam with EV.

Many of the guests also had the added bonus of being regionally significant. And while it was random to be treated to Neil Finn in New York and Marketa Irglova in Philly, many of the special guests were probably rocking out with thier house keys in their pockets (to borrow a phrase). People like Jersey rock photog Danny Clinch and the late Clarence Clemons’ sax playing nephew Jake showed up in PA, right across the water from NJ. Ex-Sleater-Kinney gals Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss appeared in thier native Portland. SoCal-friendly Mike McCready got his licks in in Long Beach while L.A. man John Densmore, of The Doors (who Ed inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in the day) did his thing at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.

All in all, 15.9% of the songs Eddie performed featured a guest. Of all songs that included guests, 81% involved Glen Hansard.

Extra Credit

Ed’s own shows were not the only places it was possible to hear him sing during this month-long run. He appeared at three other events:June 20: On ‘The Late Show With David Letterman,’ which was filmed in New York, he performed “Without You” (watch it here)June 30: At open mic night at Murphy’s Bleachers in Chicago, near Wrigley Field, he sang “All The Way” and “Rockin’ in the Free World”July 1: Before his own gig at St. Louis’ Fox theater, Eddie guested on a cover of the Who’s “Substitute” at Elvis Costello’s show at The Pageant. (more details here)

Artist & Repertoire

Figuring out the percentages is all good and fine, but sometimes you just want the total picture.
Just what were each of those 81 different songs Eddie played? Here they are, broken down into EV Originals & Covers From Albums, and Non-Album Covers, in alphabetical order.

VEDDER ORIGINALS
& COVERS FROM ALBUMS( *= covers from albums)

All The Way
Arc
Around The Bend
Better Man
Broken Heart
Can’t Keep
Dead Man
Dream A Little Dream*
Driftin’
Elderly Woman..Small Town
The End
Far Behind
Goodbye
Guaranteed
Hard Sun*
Hey Fahkah
I Am Mine
Immortality
Just Breathe
Light Today
Long Nights
Long Road
Longing To Belong
Love Boat Captain
Lukin
Man Of The Hour
More Than You Know*
No Ceiling
Off He Goes
Once In A While*
Parting Ways
Porch
Rise
Santa Cruz
Satellite
Setting Forth
Sleeping By Myself
Sleepless Nights*
Society*
Sometimes
Soon Forget
Speed Of Sound
Thumbing My Way
Tonight You Belong To Me*
(Untitled song on pump organ)
(Untitled song on mandolin)
Unthought Known
Waving Palms
Wishlist
Without You
Yellow Ledbetter
You’re True

TFT co-editor Jessica Letkemann is a New York based digital music journalist & editor. She's currently VP & Editor-In-Chief of Digital at Fuse Media (Fuse.tv) and was previously managing editor of Billboard.com. She has also been on staff at Spin and Premiere magazines. Her first Pearl Jam show was at Lollapalooza on August 2, 1992.

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Two Feet Thick is Pearl Jam website created by fans Kathy Davis, Jessica Letkemann and John Reynolds. Since May 2003, Two Feet Thick has presented original articles on Pearl Jam's music and history, including the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology.